


Complicated

by SurelyForth



Category: Dragon Age, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-13
Updated: 2015-02-13
Packaged: 2018-03-12 03:31:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3341960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SurelyForth/pseuds/SurelyForth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events of Adamant sends Hawke to Weisshaupt, a heartbroken Varric finds a surprisingly sympathetic ear in Cassandra.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Complicated

**Author's Note:**

> Bittersweet fluff written for the kink meme. BioWare owns these characters, I just get to poke at their lives a bit.

_…it was unlike any place I have seen with my waking eyes. Nothing seemed certain. The ground was forever shifting, the skyline wavering and changing at the corners of our vision. Some of it could be blamed on the green fog that wound its way throughout this place, but sometimes it seemed to be occurring entirely inside our heads. We were constantly seeking confirmation with one another- even the most assured among us found himself struggling up one staircase that seemed to flit in and out of existence between footfalls. If someone with such will, who knew better than anyone the true tricks of the Fade, could be deceived, what hope was there for the rest of our party?_

Cassandra stopped scratching, her breath short from running herself through this passage. It was the longest she’d yet to get down on paper. As glad as she was to have captured some fragment of what it had been like to be physically there, in the Fade, she knew it to be _just_ a fragment.

“Given my abilities, it is an accomplishment,” she murmured to herself, setting the sheaf of paper aside and leaning her cheek against her palm. It was long past nightfall, so she was alone in the smithy and unconcerned with who might hear her disparaging her writing skills. The Inquisitor had given an assessment of a memory written earlier in the day- a positive one provided with a shade too much hope.

Below her, a sudden thump pulled her out of her comfortable reflection, and she reached automatically to where her sword would normally be sheathed at her hip. When her hand closed around air because _of cours_ e, she was in her quarters and seldom bothered to arm herself here, she stepped up and leaned over the railing to look down on the smithy proper.

There was a lone figure casting a long shadow in the orange glow of the forge, but she was more taken aback at how the light was catching the careful embroidery on his tunic.

“Varric?” She could not keep the surprise from her voice, although she hoped she was better at covering the several glasses of wine she’d finished while working on her project. “Why- what are you doing here?”

For a moment, he didn’t respond- he busied himself tugging at the edges of his sleeves and it was all the answer she needed- he had no idea. He had been out of sorts since their return to Skyhold and, unlike the rest of them, not even the Inquisition’s victory at Adamant seemed to bring him any measure of relief.

Perhaps that is why Cassandra found herself inviting him up for another glass of wine. It was definitely why he accepted, his footfalls heavy on the stairs up to where she slept and his demeanor nothing like the braggy little thorn he seemed to pride himself on being when they were together.

“Seeker,” he offered her a mocking salute before taking a seat across from her. If he was interested in her writing, he did not show it. Not even her hurried gathering of quill and ink and paper seemed to raise his suspicions and that, more than anything, gave her cause for concern.

She cleared her throat and he raised a broad hand.

“There’s no need,” he smiled ruefully, his gaze on the candle she had been using to light her work. It was burned down almost to the quick, and he ran his finger along the edge of its base, carefully skimming the molten wax. If it hurt him, he did not let that pain show. “I think I just wanted some company…”

Cassandra raised an eyebrow in disbelief. “I was the first to come to mind?”

He chuckled, his attention still far away. “Don’t flatter yourself, Seeker,” he took his waxy fingertip and smeared it across the back of his other hand, leaving behind a thick red smudge. “I think you know who I’d rather be with right now.”

It hung between them, and Cassandra felt at once embarrassed and sympathetic. What she knew, and what he knew she knew, was not something she had ever expected to learn. She had read his take of the Champion of Kirkwall several times, for duty and for pleasure, and never had his portrayal of Hawke come across as anything more than respectful. He cared for his friend a great deal, but it never seemed to go past the point of caring, and certainly not to…

“I did not mean to intrude,” Cassandra offered it as an apology. She had tried to say it in the moment, when she had come across the two of them embracing in a corner of Adamant. At first she thought he’d been consoling Hawke in the aftermath of the Inquisitor sentencing her to accompany the exiled Wardens to Weisshaupt. But it had been more than that. “I am sorry, Varric.”

This time, he actually looked up at her. “It wasn’t supposed to happen like that, not between us,” his lips pressed tight together, his mouth forming a skewed line. “She already has…well, you know.”

Cassandra leaned forward, propping her elbows on the edge of the table.

“The mage, yes,” disgust curled the edges of her voice. “She could do better.”

“Better!” Varric laughed again, a surprisingly bitter bark. “If you’re implying that would be me, I wouldn’t. I’m as much to blame for…,” he trailed off, his brow crumpling as he echoed Cassandra’s last words. “She could do better.”

She studied him for a moment. Their complicated relationship aside, she could admit that he was certainly not without his charms. And, despite their rather rigorous disagreement on what constituted honesty, she respected his commitment to both his friends and the Inquisition. He had, after all, joined despite her own open hostility, and remained despite her aggressive overtures to alternate ends.

It was still a surprise to hear herself chastising him.

“You and I both know that is not true,” she crossed her arms over her chest. Whatever crimes Varric might have committed against _her_ trust, he had been nothing if not steadfast in his loyalty to Hawke. “No matter what blame you have assumed, she does not hold it against you. I saw nothing to suggest that she feels you are unworthy. Quite the opposite, in fact.”

He spent the next minute in silence, picking at the dried wax caught in the hairs on the back if his hand. When he finally glanced up from his task, she could see that his expression was relaxed from what it had been, before.

“We’ve already established she has lousy taste, Seeker,” he almost smiled. “But I guess I can’t hold that against her…some of the best nights of my life have been a result of her ability to enjoy the tragically mundane and beneath her station.”

“She doesn’t strike me as someone who feels she has a station,” Cassandra had not spent nearly enough time with Hawke to get to know her as well as she’d like, but it was clear Hawke didn’t see herself being anything more than a strong sword arm with a _very_ persuasive spokesperson. “Aside, of course, from the pedestal on which _others_ have placed her.”

This truth brought a flush to his features. It was, if nothing else, a reminder that the woman to whom he spoke knew a great deal about what it was like to be made into something akin to a figure of myth and not feel the accolades entirely earned.

“Well,” his chest puffed out for a moment and then whatever wall he had erected between them fell into dust. “I watched her give everything to everyone in Kirkwall, and never ask a damn thing in return. I couldn’t help it if I tried.”

“So you didn’t.”

“No, I did,” he drummed his fingers on the table. “She was my best friend, and a human. She was half gone for Blondie the moment she found out he was helping Kirkwall’s refugees…when he turned out to be handsome… _well_ , it was all over. I know all about odds and statistics, Seeker, and there was no version of events where me and Hawke could be anything more than…”

“Kissing in the corner of a fortress?” Cassandra heard the tease in her voice and was almost horrified at how _easy_ it was.

His face contorting in an expression of mock disgust, Varric offered her an obscene gesture in response.

“Things are different now. _We’re_ different…I don’t know. She still loves him, and I’ve got my own complicated situation. But seeing her again, and then almost losing her in the Fade…it’s all fucked up, but when she’s around, I don’t even care.” He noticed Cassandra’s slowly creeping smile and waved it off. “All right, I know how it sounds. It’s the most bullshit clichés about missing limbs and breaths you didn’t know you needed to take I can think of. But it’s not just words on a page, or disarming patter. It’s how I feel when I’m with her, and how I _don’t_ feel when I’m not.”

Cassandra tilted her head in sympathy. “It’s easier to think yourself unworthy.”

“Damn right it is,” his voice was passionate, and he reached out for the uncorked bottle of wine they had left mostly untouched. “But unworthy doesn’t get kissed like that in the corner of a fortress. Among other things.”

Two black eyebrows shot up.

“Don’t tell me this is going to find its way into the next chapter of _Swords and Shields_ …”

 “Not on your life, Seeker,” he took a long drink and smiled, whatever memory he had captured more sweet than bitter. “I’m already sharing her with every Grey Warden in Orlais…you and the other five people who read that damn book will just have to use your imaginations.”


End file.
